Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
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Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
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Alan Milburn (the government's social mobility tsar) has criticised the medical profession for not doing enough to open its doors to poorer students. In a new report, he "will urge teaching hospitals
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Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 10:36 AM BST
on bmj.com
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*Moderator*
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First: 7/4/2011 Last: 20/5/2013 |
Alan Milburn (the government's social mobility tsar) has criticised the medical profession for not doing enough to open its doors to poorer students. In a new report, he "will urge teaching hospitals to do more to open up work experience to less well-off teenagers, as well as calling on them to actively select students with poorer grades to study medicine." "We won't get a more mobile society unless we create more of a level playing field of opportunity. I wouldn't view it as positive discrimination … I view it as widening the pool of talent from which medicine recruits." http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/29/socialmobility-medicine?newsfeed=true Of course, the rise in tuition fees does not help. I have heard about poorer students being priced out of studying medicine - see this post for more info: http://doc2doc.bmj.com/forums/bmj_careers_attention-graduates-being-priced-out-of-studying-medicine-viewhelp-needed Is the medical profession only for the well-off? Is it becoming more difficult for less well-off students to apply? And in the name of social mobility, should poorer students be supported to get into medical school? Should they be given special dispensation (i.e. poorer grades, as Milburn suggests) to be let into medical school? |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 11:41 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 324
First: 23/12/2011 Last: 3/5/2013 |
I dont who in the world would vote yes to this question as I think it is an awful thing that you are saying when you answer yes. To say that medicine is for the 'well off' makes us all seem like bow tie wearing cane and top hat using snobs- which I sincerely hope we are not. |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 6:27 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 339
First: 17/12/2011 Last: 15/5/2013 |
I think to be useful Doctor you need intelligence and hard work. My parents are Doctors and I went to Public boarding school [Epsom]. I went to Bristol University and probably most but certainly not all the other Medical students in my year came from what one could call middle class families. I have worked in Inner City medicine for 32 years. I have fostered 4 children . I have been on the local Councils and various other jobs. I think I can empathize and hopefully listen to, diagnose and treat my patients well. If I had come from a poor family, I probably would not have been a Doctor, although I think I would have achieved something as I am or certainly was quite determined. I remember talking to one of the student at Bristol. She was a good friend and quite left wing. Nancy , who I gather later became a psychiatrist, said 'do you ever think about if you had not been accepted to Medical School , who would have taken your place? '. Well I don't know who that might have been and I hope they got in somewhere else and at least have had useful lives. It is perhaps a bit like the film 'saving Private Ryan when the Ryan, guy who is saved, asks his family 'tell me I have been a good man , or words to that effect '. I hope I have generally been a help to my patients. I think that no whatever background you come from it is possible to be a good Doctor. |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 7:28 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 17
First: 20/3/2011 Last: 23/10/2012 |
Perhaps well-off isn't the correct term, I'd say more well-connected. As an example, both me and a friend applied for medical school this year. My parents are the first generation of my family to go to university and both became teachers. My friend's parents are doctors. Work experience is an essential part if the application and so my friend had an advantage over me. I wrote 50 letters and emails and got a fortnight of work experience, one week of which took me over an hour to get to. My friend asked his parents who gave him a weekly place along with all half terms and holidays, should he want to go. His application obviously had a huge advantage over mine, simply because he is related to doctors and I am not. Maybe I should go into teaching instead! |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 8:16 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2042
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2013 |
Glad you got that experience, Rachel. My Trust long ago banned any school students being accepted, and I believe that local GP practices do the same. The fear is confidentiality, and applies to anyone, consultants kids included. A way that my daughter (the doctor) got that tick on her CV was to volunteer via Duke Of Edinburgh Award Scheme as a ward assistant, feeding geriatric patients, escorting them for X-rays etc etc. REliving hard pressed ward staff and maybe showing more commitment to care than swanning around, shadowing some consultant or GP. But back to Mr.Milburn. It is the Government's task, NOT that of medical schools to promote social mobility, by reducing unemployment and salary divergence, improving schools and careers advice. He asks them to, "actively select students with poorer grades to study medicine" by lowering the standards by which cadidates are selected for medical training. I hpe that the Schools roundly reject this, and tell the Governemtn to sort out its own problems. John Competing interests. I am the son of a surgeon, the grandson of a bank clerk and a railway engineer. I am very middle class. |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 8:49 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 174
First: 13/10/2009 Last: 18/5/2013 |
John D -you raise an interesting point. I think there are quite a number of doctors where the grandparents come from relatively so-called humble origins. Presumably their own children will now be disadvantaged as an increased intake of those seen as socially disadvantaged will mean pushing out some of those seen as advantaged. None of my forebears were medical , but I did not resent contemporaries who came from medical families. At least they had an idea of what a medical career might involve. Personally , I think what is needed is to improve the system for late entry and use much wider criteria for selection than just A-level grades. The latter system is bound to disadvantage those from schools less skilled in the art of gaining university or medical school entry. |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 9:53 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 339
First: 17/12/2011 Last: 15/5/2013 |
I think if Medical Schools expect work experience then this explains why more sixth formers are contacting our surgery looking for work experience! But as John says, there are potential confidentiality problems and while I like having students at the practice, teaching and supervision does take time and we are very busy.. It might have been good if Deans had talked to GPs and hospital to sort out if placements are available before making work experience 'essential'. During my student days I used to work in the holidays, Post Office , warehouse, portering, nursing , bar work etc. It was also possible in the 1970 s to work as a nurse, so I did a bit of night nursing, trouble was that I then tended to fall asleep in lectures. May explain in part why I qualified with LMSSA MRCS LRCP ! |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 30/5/2012 10:49 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 3045
First: 27/3/2012 Last: 20/5/2013 |
I think there is nothing more superior to be learned than the medicine is. Also the medicine is worth learning for everyone who is interested in it & should get the opportunity to be a part of this prestigious & noble profession. Clearly then, the medical profession is not only for the well-off. |
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 31/5/2012 8:34 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
The medical profession is for those who feel "off" not those who are well. Who says I am a concrete thinker and that there is no romance or word play in medicine. In Australia it is common for people to say, "I am feeling a bit off, doc". We also say about something in bad taste that it is a "bit off". Well-off sounds like a bit of an oxymoron to me where the off really means "on" and not "off". In football we have off-side which is not the same as well-off unless you play rugby for Rugby. English is so "off' at times.
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Re: Is the medical profession only for the well-off?
posted at 1/6/2012 2:16 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 14
First: 7/5/2009 Last: 16/5/2013 |
In response to "Is the medical profession only for the well-off?": Alan Milburn (the government's social mobility tsar) has criticised the medical profession for not doing enough to open its doors to poorer students. In a new report, he "will urge teaching hospitals to do more to open up work experience to less well-off teenagers, as well as calling on them to actively select students with poorer grades to study medicine ." "We won't get a more mobile society unless we create more of a level playing field of opportunity. I wouldn't view it as positive discrimination … I view it as widening the pool of talent from which medicine recruits." http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/29/socialmobility-medicine?newsfeed=true Of course, the rise in tuition fees does not help. I have heard about poorer students being priced out of studying medicine - see this post for more info: http://doc2doc.bmj.com/forums/bmj_careers_attention-graduates-being-priced-out-of-studying-medicine-viewhelp-needed Is the medical profession only for the well-off? Is it becoming more difficult for less well-off students to apply? And in the name of social mobility, should poorer students be supported to get into medical school? Should they be given special dispensation (i.e. poorer grades, as Milburn suggests) to be let into medical school?
Posted by mbillingsley |
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